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Blackout in Busan apartment complex leaves residents sweltering for 8 hours

Published: 22 Aug. 2025, 10:40 Updated: 22 Aug. 2025, 15:15

A blackout at an apartment in Korea. The image is unrelated to the story. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

A blackout lasting longer than eight hours struck a large apartment complex in Busan on Thursday, leaving residents struggling to cope amid an ongoing heat wave.

According to the Busan Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, power was cut at around 7 p.m. Thursday at a complex in Banyeo-dong, Haeundae District, accommodating some 1,500 households. Electricity was not restored until 3:30 a.m. Friday, roughly eight and a half hours later.

The outage is believed to have been caused by a malfunction in the apartment’s internal power distribution system.

Without power, residents were unable to run air conditioners through the night. Some sought refuge from the heat by turning on their car engines and sitting inside with the air conditioning running, while others were left stranded as elevators stopped operating.

“Many residents had to sleep in their cars with the engines running because the blackout meant we couldn’t turn on the air conditioner,” one resident said. “Food in the fridge went bad, and the elevators weren’t working either.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY HAN YOUNG-HYE [[email protected]]